


i'll see you with your laughter lines

by brucewaynery



Series: happy steve bingo fills [14]
Category: Marvel
Genre: Fluff, Getting Together, Happy Steve Bingo, M/M, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug, Steve Rogers and the 21st Century
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-01
Updated: 2019-12-01
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:20:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,341
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21633574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brucewaynery/pseuds/brucewaynery
Summary: Tony find out that Steve Rogers has a tiny wrinkle between his eyebrows, something that should, logically, be impossible, according to Erskine and his father's old journals.Tony does what any good scientist should, when presented with the impossible and the illogical: he investigates.(laugh lines, happy steve bingo)
Relationships: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Series: happy steve bingo fills [14]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1495793
Comments: 3
Kudos: 174
Collections: Happy Steve Bingo 2019





	i'll see you with your laughter lines

Tony’s read as many super soldier files as he can get his hands on, all of Howard’s journals, the records of the day, police reports, science papers of the time, some out of interest, bitterness, just what exactly he has to live up to.

They tell him, amongst other things, that his collagen production should, in theory, never decrease, or, at least, decrease at a much slower rate than average.

So, decades after he read that for the first time, in his father’s godawful scrawl, with some of Erskine’s graceful cursive in the margins, it comes to a surprise to him when he’s staring the great Captain America in the face, screaming obscenities as they do every other day, because Captain America is nothing like the war reels depict, if you asked Tony, because he has a small wrinkle, just between his eyebrows.

Logically, that shouldn’t be possible. Technically, Rogers is in his late twenties - barely old enough to have crows’ feet if he were a normal human. Logically, he should have the skin of an eight-year-old.

But, defying all of Tony’s expectations as normal, here he stands, with a small wrinkle, albeit not that deep, just under where his left eyebrow begins, at a 45 degree angle and stopping parallel to the top of where his right eyebrow begins. Not incredibly important, but Tony’s never seen it before, and it goes against what he thought. So he decides to do what any good scientist worth their PhD would do: he investigates.

With the knowledge that wrinkles are formed by repeated motions, Tony plans to watch Rogers whenever they’re together. Which turns out to be utterly futile, because Rogers is barely around.

“Where’s Cap?” Tony asks Natasha one morning after failing to see him for a week.

She gives him an odd look. “On a mission.”

“Since when?”

“Last week. It’s running over a bit.”

“JARVIS,” Tony says, “why didn’t I know this?”

“Maybe,” Natasha cuts in, before JARVIS can respond, “because Steve doesn’t have to report to you?”

Well, Tony can’t argue that point. Nor can he really explain his sudden interest in their good captain without sounding like a headcase, but then again, she’d been around the last time Tony had gone off the rails (as the tabloids, and his board members, liked to put it).

“Did you know he has a wrinkle?”

Natasha considers him for a second. Tony wonders lightly if he should’ve just stayed in his workshop.

“Not everyone spends their afternoons staring at his face, Tony.”

“I’m concerned about my fellow teammate, what if the serum’s failing? Then you’d wish you spent your afternoons staring at him.”

“Right.”

Tony nods and leaves the kitchen. 

-

When Rogers comes back, he barely talks to any of them, which Tony probably should have noticed earlier, but in his defence, he’d been dealing with his own stuff.

He really lives up to the ‘legend’ part of ‘living legend’, Tony finds, as he actually pays attention to his teammates. Natasha is the closest to him, but Tony suspects that’s solely because of the sheer volume of missions they go on together, and even then, Tony’s pretty sure that the only reason she knows him so well is down to her secret spy training than anything else.

He only interacts with them out of necessity, during Barton’s mandated movie nights he’s almost never there, and he fucks off on solo missions more often than not.

It’s all severely impacting his study. (Something, admittedly, he’s forgotten entirely about until he’d found the file when he was cleaning out his desktop.)

When he uncovers it, he finds out (through entirely legal means) that he’s on a mission in Baghdad. 

-

When Rogers comes back, they’re having a team movie night. He pokes his head into the living room, halfway into Raiders of the Lost Ark still ensconced in the cowl, then leaves. Tony thinks nothing of it, he’s probably tired, until he’s sent off to get more popcorn.

He walks in on Rogers glaring at the stove, cowl off, with most of the top part of his uniform hanging around his waist, holding a pair of tweezers over it with one arm and gripping his abdomen with the other. He jumps when he enters, clearly not expecting him. The look in his eyes dares him to tell someone, or tell him off, or tell him to go to the medbay to cauterize the wound.

“Not particularly hygienic,” Tony says, instead.

The glare deepens. “I’ll disinfect the place in a minute,” he grunts, before he take the tweezers off the flame and digs it into his abdomen and it dawns on Tony he’s not trying to cauterize anything.

“Are you fucking insane!?” 

In the back of his mind, Tony supposes it’s not all bad if he’s using sterilised tweezers.

“Fuck off,” Rogers mutters, and Tony’s too busy opening a first aid kit to get some gauze to process Captain America swearing.

He hears the bullet clatter on the countertop and presses the gauze to the wound, still bleeding sluggishly.

“Should’a gone to the medbay,” Tony says.

“No-ones there,” he says, taking hold of the gauze in his own hand. His glare had lightened up, and he looks something more like the guy from the reels.

Tony’s eyes flick to the clock which tells him that it’s long past three in the morning, “What about us?” Tony asks, thoroughly washing his hands before he started on the popcorn.

Rogers gives him an odd look, something so similar to Natasha’s he gets déjà vu, “What about you?” 

Something about that, the nonchalant, almost dismissive way he talks sparks something in him. “You are in a tower stuffed full of people far more qualified than you, and you have the nerve to ask ‘What about us’?”

Tony can practically hear his teeth grinding. “I am your leader. I refuse to let--”

“Let us what? See you bleed? Guess what, you’re pretty damn impressive, but you’re not Superman!”

“Thanks for the clarification, Bats,” Rogers says, making to leave, scowling.

“I think I just found our resident Kryptonian taking out bullets in the kitchen,” Tony mutters to Natasha.

“Did he use tweezers?”

Tony nods.

“Did he sterilise them?”

Tony nods again.

Natasha smiles a little, “He’s improving.”

“Improving!?”

“Last time he was trying to dig them out with his fingers, just, let him be, okay?”

Tony gets a sudden wave of… something for Steve Rogers. He tells himself it’s anger. And Tony Stark has never been particularly good at letting things be.

-

His conclusion, a month later, dampens his mood for reasons unknown.

Steve Rogers has a wrinkle at 45 degrees, between his eyebrows, on his glabella, because the only facial expression he seems to make is a scowl.

“JARVIS,” Tony says, after a moment of quiet, “how do I make a Capsicle happy?”

JARVIS tells him to be nicer.

Turns out, it takes a couple months of taking him out to places, teasing him, making him smile, then laugh, dragging him into the team movie nights, forming some sort of camaraderie with him.

And somewhere along the way, he falls in love with him

They’re face-to-face, but this time, the noise isn’t from them, but the New Years party inside.

The scowl wrinkle is still there, still as faint as it’s ever been, but now, he has crows’ feet adorning the corners of his eyes.

“You have no idea how happy I am to see wrinkles,” Tony whispers, stroking his thumb over them, lips still tingling from their kiss. He supposes it would have been more romantic to wait for midnight, ring in the New Year with a kiss, but after Steve’s confession, Tony couldn’t help but kiss him there and then, regardless of the time, and tell him of his scowl-wrinkle discovery, almost a year ago.

Steve grins wider, deepening the wrinkles, “‘M catchin’ up to you.”

“That’s rude,” Tony says, with utterly no heat, leaning in to kiss him again and again, long into the New Year.

**Author's Note:**

> comments and [reblogs](https://talesofsuspenses.tumblr.com/post/189413490971/ill-see-you-with-your-laughter-lines) are greatly appreciated!


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